Sunday, November 4, 2018

At the NBER market design conference, Michael Schwarz spoke of market design with his practioner hat on (he's Microsoft's chief economist, and former chief scientist at Waze when he worked for Google). He points out the importance of reducing transaction costs, because "enormous [potential] markets may consist of tiny transactions."

Speaking of which, he points out that Waze carpool went live throughout the U.S. last month.

"Carpooling isn’t just a smart way to cut down on weekly expenditures. It’s also good for the planet: Sharing a car with coworkers, friends, or neighbors keeps 1,600 pounds of greenhouse gas out of the air each year. And if 100 people were to take advantage of a carpool every day, it’d eliminate 1,320 pounds of carbon monoxide and a whopping 2,376,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

That’s one of the reasons Google-owned navigation platform Waze hopes to lower the barrier to entry. Starting today, it’s launching Waze Carpool, a ridesharing platform it hopes will one day eliminate traffic congestion — and by extension pollution — across the U.S. in all 50 states. The rollout follows successful pilot tests in Israel, California, Texas, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Nevada."